Built a small grinder and made a kiridashi with it

[skonkworks]

Good morning everyone.
I didn't have much to do today, so I built a little 1/3HP belt grinder out of stuff I had laying around in the shop. Nothing fancy, no frills. Just about an hour's worth of tinkering. I'm saving my pennies for a 2x72.

Decided to try it out. All my other projects have been made with a bench or angle grinder and elbow grease. Here's my first try at a flat bevel. It turned out well, so I added a slight bevel along the spine, which added some good lines (they're subtle. Kind of hard to see in the pictures)

The blade is 1080, and about 5" overall. I'd like to add a handle, but not sure what material I'd like to use yet.

 

[Dawkind]

Nice job, sure did get a high polish on it.

 

[skonkworks]

Nice job, sure did get a high polish on it.

Thanks! Yeah, by the time I got an edge on it, what started as a 1000 grit belt was more like 2000 grit. After that, a few passes on the strop shined it right up.

 

[Mecha]

Nice job on the grinder! I bet you'd come up with an interesting post anvil and "coffee can forge" setup.

 

[skonkworks]

Thanks! Haha yeah we'll see. I'm a little limited on space right now, living in an apartment. And the guys at work wouldn't appreciate me using all the acetylene in a forge. I can't bring my own gas cylinders, they'd never make it past security.

Update: I decided to just work with what I've got and put a 550 cord wrap on the handle. Then I made a kydex sheath for it.

I sealed it with epoxy resin, which is setting up now.